YAN of my posts Zips right across the Screamer's view without him catching on:

Sir cus,
You can wear a damned gas mask if you're so paranoid.

Of course I could.

But, AGAIN, that would be an inconvenience to *me*, wouldn't it?

And, for the umpty-fourteenth time, why should *I* shoulder any inconvenience because *you* want to indulge in a filthy habit?

You are right, I am beating a dead horse, and I am getting silly (I hope), although a war on obsesity is not *so* far fetched now.

Well, with the typical American hyperbole and misuse of the word "War", they *could* use that moniker for a public health drive, I suppose: A campaign to encourage everyone to get rid of their *own* overweight problem. As long as it didn't take the wildly exaggerated forms you suggested, maybe that wouldn't even be so bad a thing -- obesity *is*, as I understand, the #1 cause of health problems in America (and rapidly becoming so elsewhere, including here, too).

I am a man, but I will not admit that I'm "wrong" on this issue.

Well, AFAICT you fucking well should: Not *once* in this thread have you quoted and directly replied to any of my main points of fact and/or principle. (See "umpty-fourteen", above.) For the last time, before I finally abandon this discussion, I'll give you the chance to do so here; if you again chose not to, I'll just have to put you down as "won't admit when he's wrong".

Unlike you, I still am not at all convinced that second hand smoke is a significant health risk. So, at that point, your argument becomes very weak.

No, it doesn't -- it is *self-evident*. What is "very weak" is *your* insistence that there even *is* such a thing as "second hand smoke"! Where the F do you get that from??? Smoke is smoke is smoke, fercryingoutloud! Is *smoke* detrimental to your health, yes or no?

You see, my friend, you are still basing your assumptions on the fiction that the second hand smoke studies "proved" something conclusively.

No, I'm not -- I never read them. Why should I? Is it, or isn't it, fairly conclusively proven that *cigarette smoke* is carcinogenic? How in the blue yonder could it matter to me who is *holding* the damn thing, me or someone else? As long as there is *one* carcinogenic particle that gets into *my* lungs from *your* cigarette, my cancer risk is increased. Infinitesimally, yes... for *one* particle. But if I get one, I get millions (or billions?), don't I?

[Links to studies elided]

Why would I need "studies", when I *know* for a *fact* that your smoke gets to me? It's quite obvious, really: I *know* for a *fact* that your smoke gets into my clothes and makes them stink, irritates my eyes so they get red and run and hurt, and gets on my skin and in my hair so *I* stink. Apart from the nuisance value[*], that *shows* your carcinogenic smoke gets to my lungs. Don't believe me? OK, AFAICS, it's easy to logically convince me I am wrong. You only have to show that, either

• The stink somehow propagates separately from the health risk; that those smelly particles lodged in my hair and clothes and lungs are not the ones that could give me cancer, but that those somehow go somewhere completely else. (Where?) Or,
• That the stuff that clings to my hair and clothes and skin does not, in fact, get into my lungs at all; that your smoke somehow magically knows not to go down my breathing apparatus (what, maybe it thinks, "Yuck! Been there, done that... Never again!"?), and that the air I actually breathe comes from somewhere else. (Where?)

I wish you luck in proving either of those... Which one are you going to tackle first? Hey, maybe you can find some "studies" on the Web that show it! Only, no voodoo-jumbo that differentiates between "air" and "second-hand air", please -- I'll take bullshit like that as a priori proof that the "study" isn't scientifically valid.

I am, on the other hand, very concerned that all the shit we've been throwing into the atmosphere is. It's like having a zit ontop of a tumour. The solution is to pop the zit... and then self piously claim some sort of moral high ground about public health... It just kind of reaks of hypocrisy to me.

Well, no -- the "zit", as you call it, is *also* a tumour. OK, so I'm only ranting against the smaller tumour here... And WTF's wrong with that?!? Do you seriously think a good doctor, faced with a patient with two tumours, one easy to treat and the other much harder, should let the lesser one be? Why, *just because* it's easier, or what?

Now reasonable people can agree to disagree... Right?

Sure... But truly smart people would of course never -- by definition! -- disagree with me! :-)

---

[*]: Oh yeah, BTW, I recall you said something upstream about "your point" being that this was "nuisance, not health, legislation" [from memory, probably paraphrased]. For one thing, that's idiotic: If the "nuisance" is smoke, and smoke[**] is carcinogenic, how the heck could the "nuisance" *not* also be a health risk? But that is neither here nor there: *I* sure never claimed that "the point" was that this would be "health, not nuisance, legislation". _Either one_ is reason enough, IMutterlyHO, to forbid it.

[**]: At "first", "second", or umpty-fourteenth hand: Smoke is *smoke*. To disprove *that*, you only have to show how *your* lungs are perfect scrubbers, trapping *every* carcinogenic particle that goes in them and never exhaling a single one of them. (And that still leaves the issue of the glow-stick in your *hand*, smoldering away...)